Three blocks of life

Moving through downtown this morning, early, early, after my peaceful walk around the lake, I was jolted as sirens blared. Soon a fire truck appeared, then a medic unit and then two patrol cars. All the first responders arrived first to tend to a homeless man whose arm had a severe and bleeding bump – like a golf ball protruding from under his skin. He looked dazed and disheveled with wild hair, dirty clothes, like he had just awakened from a night on the street… In the next block, a man knelt at the edge of the intersection, his head lowered and his hands folded in prayer with all the precision of a Benedictine monk. He was not distracted by the city noises and vehicles moving around him…I wondered what his heart longed for. In the next block a team of regulars were setting up their ugly, deeply disturbing photos (which is the point, I know) of aborted fetuses at various stages of gestational life.

Such an odd juxtaposition: defending life with photographs while steps away, suffering people struggled and prayed for healing and peace.